2011

On the plane home from Egypt Sam was talking about some Arabic news footage she had seen on TV about demonstrations in Cairo over the weekend. Though we didn’t know much about it at that point, it was unusual to have such large demonstrations in Egypt.

What we hadn’t realised that this was all part of a series of protests in the Arab world, partly inspired by the uprising in Tunisia that had occurred a month or so ago. These protests all across the Middle East were to become known as the ‘Arab Spring’.

The day after I returned home, on January 25th, the demonstrations in Cairo began in earnest – organized to coincide with National Police Day. I began to watch the news coverage with horrified fascination as the Cairo story unfolded – they say it was organized mainly through social media and I, for one, was getting much of the current news through facebook and twitter. Tens of thousands of protestors out on Cairo’s streets had never been seen before. Their initial intent was to demonstrate against abuses by the police and to demand the resignation of the Minister of Interior.

I was horrified and saddened by the events of Friday January 28th when the government attempted to put and end to the protests and the terrible loss of life and suffering that ensued. By this time protestors’ demands had expanded to include the restoration of a fair minimum wage, and a fixed term presidency as well as an end to Egyptian emergency law, a ‘temporary law’ that has now been in place for decades.

In the following two weeks, President Mubarak dismissed his government and appointed a new cabinet, but this didn’t satisfy the protestors who were by now like a dog that wouldn’t let go of a bone. It was hard to believe that so much violence was happening in a country so close to my heart. Finally, on 11th February, President Mubarak resigned and handed the country over to the armed forces, who had been seen to be almost in a peace-keeping role, portrayed by the media as a ‘friend of the people’. The new military rulers made many promises that went some way to satisfy protestors demands.

Now, almost eight months later, many of these promises have been broken and little progress seems to have been made in the Egyptian Revolution. I can only hope that the upcoming elections will produce a strong leader who is able to lead the Egyptian people to a better fairer future. Time will tell.

Early on Monday morning Abdul took us to Luxor airport in his minibus. Watching the steam-like mist rising from the canal alongside the road on the West Bank and taking a last look the beautiful pink sunrise glow of the Theban Mountains my heart was already missing Egypt. This is a longing I always feel when it’s time to go home.

It is quite a long journey over the bridge and as usual we were late arriving at the airport, being among the last to check in. We checked our luggage and hurried up to the smart new cafeteria area and bought cups of coffee – this airport has changed a great deal in the years I’ve been coming to Luxor. Once, little more than a few low buildings on a desert runway, it now feels much more like any international airport in the world – well almost. Within a couple of minutes the announcement came that our flight was now boarding. Goodbye Luxor, I hope I’ll be back soon.

We flew out over Karnak Temple and the Theban Hills and had a great view of the West Bank monuments before turning and rising out over the high desert, now and again getting glimpses of the shining water of the Nile below. Within an hour we were heading over the coast west of Alexandria and out across the sea.

We woke in our Ramla apartment to a beautiful Luxor morning, the River Nile sparkling in the early morning sunlight just beyond our little garden. Fiona, Malcolm and I decided to go for a walk and have breakfast in the little café down the lane on the river bank. Very quickly a wonderful breakfast was produced – orange juice, coffee, rolls with butter and fig jam, omelettes – what more could we ask.

As we ate, we sat and watched the nearby activity. Camels were lazing on the banks waiting for their daily quota of tourists, at which time they would stumble up to amble along the bank at their own slow pace, accompanied by boys whose job it was to lead the laden animals a couple of kilometres along the track and back again. Next to us some men had laid out a huge felucca sail and were busy repairing small tears. All was peaceful.

I suggested we cross the river and take a walk along Sphinx Avenue to see how the excavation was coming along. Fiona and Malcolm were keen to do this and we crossed the river on the ferry, going up to the upper deck to get a good view of the river traffic. I love approaching Luxor by river, with the pylon and columns of Luxor Temple getting ever nearer and the whole stately expanse of the Old Winter Palace gleaming ochre in the sunlight. In just a few minutes it was time for the scramble to get off.

We walked along by the temple and around the corner onto Sharia el-Karnak, the road that leads all the way to Karnak Temple and the route that the avenue of sphinxes follows. I had walked along this route last January and was appalled by how much destruction of shops and homes there was, but first we stopped to look into the block field behind the temple that is now very well organized. I remember a few years ago when it was just a jumbled heap of stones. The Roman remains at the back of the temple have been extended too.

Luxor has been ‘prettified’ in recent years, all in the name of tourism and as we began our trail at the new entrance to the temple in the big empty paved plaza, I wasn’t sure that I like the so-called improvements. Nectanebo I of Dynasty XXX constructed his processional avenue of sphinxes on top of an older route which was used at certain periods to carry the sacred barque of Amun from the Karnak Temples to Luxor Temple at festival times . An inscription of Nectanebo reads “I have built a beautiful road for my father Amun-Re surrounded by walls and decorated with flowers for the journey to the temple of Luxor”. Another inscription bears a cartouche for Queen Cleopatra, possibly to mark a visit by the queen to Luxor. Was she the first ‘tourist?’

We followed the sphinxes from the temple pylon, more paving work has been done here and this part of the row has been extended and further cleared. I remembered the lovely old mosque, a landmark that used to be here, now gone. We stood on the road that at present still crosses the avenue and looked along the line of sphinxes towards Luxor Temple and then looked to the other side of the road, which is still a demolition site. Nothing much seems to have been done here in the past year and mounds of rubbish have collected in the sandy trenches, though big diggers look busy today. I noticed a man who looked like he was in charge, sitting beneath a sun shade dangerously close to the falling mounds of earth.

Further along past the big Christian church another section of paving began and this is where several new structures have been uncovered recently. Nearer the Airport Road and behind the modern Culture Centre a huge containing wall has been constructed and access points will allow visitors into certain parts of the avenue. Someone waved for us to come down into the avenue, but we preferred to continue walking along the outside to get an overall view.

On the other side of Airport Road a lot more clearance and paving work has been done. This area is near the villa we stayed in last year and where many houses were being demolished at that time. It has now been mostly cleared but it looks as though more houses will be torn down before very long. I only hope that the people who lose their homes will be properly compensated. We carried on along the road towards Karnak’s Khonsu Gate past the dog-leg that joins the avenue leading to the Temple of Mut. More excavation here too with a grid of mudbrick walls newly uncovered.

In front of the Khonsu Gate and behind the oldest of the sphinxes, we came upon a large curved excavation which I later found out is thought to be part of the original Nile embankment, increasing archaeological evidence that Karnak Temple, as depicted in reliefs, was indeed on the banks of the river. This was an exciting find.

We were all feeling hot and fairly tired by this point so we decided to walk around to the new entrance to Karnak Temple, which Fiona and Malcolm hadn’t yet seen – it was further than we thought! They too, as I was last year, were pretty amazed by the spectacle of a wide open plaza, modern tourist bazaar and new visitor centre built in front of Karnak’s first pylon since they were last here. I don’t think they were overly impressed, especially when we came to pay for the over-priced glass of fruit juice in one of the cafés. I guess that’s progress. We also went into the visitor centre that can be accessed without paying for a temple ticket. There is a large wooden model of the Karnak Temples here now which is quite impressive. The things I liked most were the old black and white and sepia photographs of temple excavation that line the walls, and a little train built in 1934 and used by Henri Chevrier in his Karnak excavations around that time.

After we left Karnak we decided to walk the quickest route back to the ferry – not an easy task because we had forgotten that part of the Corniche was closed to all traffic, with barriers across its northern end. We had to take a long detour, back to Sharia el-Karnak and down onto the Corniche near the Etap Mercure Hotel and I was quite shocked to see a whole stretch of the Corniche torn up.

Back at the apartment we went up onto the roof to watch the sun setting over the Theban Hills on this, our last evening in Luxor. As the sun went down I could see farmers and their wives and children on their way home from the fields, everything was bathed in a warm golden light which slowly turned a vivid deep red before darkness descended.

Later in the evening Fiona, Malcolm, Sam, Abdul and I had a farewell meal at the Italian restaurant in the Iberotel (the old Novotel). The Iberotel, despite it’s name-change a few years ago, hasn’t changed much at all I’m happy to say, apart from the price of its rooms. This has always been my favourite Luxor hotel. We sat on the terrace in the gardens long into the evening listening to the familiar noises from the town and the river. Tomorrow we fly back to England.

It’s just typical – the morning we are due to leave the New Valley to drive back to Luxor, the weather has really brightened up, the sun already hot by 9.00am. We were planning to see a few more sites on the way out of Kharga, which would make the day ahead a lot more interesting. We still had the company of Basim, our constant police companion and there were mutterings about him asking for a lift back to Luxor with us, but we also had a police truck to escort us today too.

Our first stop was at Qasr el-Ghueita, one of the Kharga chain of hilltop fortresses which may once have housed a garrison of Roman troops, but which also contains a temple dated to Persian Dynasty XXVII and XXVIII, during the reigns of Amasis and Darius. The Arabic name of the mudbrick Roman fortress means ‘fortress of the small garden’, evidence that it was once part of a thriving agricultural community. It is perched on a high hill and a long sandy path leads up the slope to the temple entrance. Though dated to the Persian rulers the temple itself may have existed here from as early as the Middle Kingdom and it is thought that pictures of grape harvests in many Theban tombs may have described the gardens. Oasis wine was also a favourite during the New Kingdom. Within the high walls of the fortress, the sandstone temple occupied about one fifth of the space and was dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khons. Much of the remaining decoration is Ptolemaic, with well-preserved screen walls and several floral columns.

Gheuita is probably the most well-decorated temple I’ve seen in the New Valley and the reliefs are superbly intricate. In typical Ptolemaic style, there are three sanctuaries in the back of the temple which still contain many remnants of coloured paint. We climbed up an adjacent staircase to the roof, from where we had a lovely view into the temple as well as across the surrounding countryside. The sandstone temple is surrounded by remains of the mudbrick structures of the fortress which are also scattered down the slopes of the hill. The temple is currently under the auspices of Yale University’s Theban Desert Roads Project.

Further west we stopped at another fortress and temple, the ruins of Qasr el-Zayyan, one of the largest and most important ancient settlements in Kharga Oasis. This time situated on a flat plain, Qasr el-Zayyan was also a Ptolemaic and Roman monument which was famous for its large well, an important source of water that gave the town the name of Takhoneourit, or Tchonemyris in Greek. The deep well can still be seen inside the massive enclosure wall of the temple.

The small sandstone temple within the fortress was dedicated to the god ‘Amun of Hibis’, who was known to the Romans as Amenibis and who we had met in other sites in the Oasis. The entrance gate in the southern side of the wall and has a lintel with a dedicatory inscription in Greek: ‘To Amenibis the great god of Tchonemyris and to the other gods of the temple, for the eternal preservation of Antoninus Caesar, our Lord and his whole house . . .’ and goes on to name the governor and officials involved in the restoration. The inscription is dated 11 August AD140. Though the temple is not so prolifically decorated as Qasr el-Ghueita, or as well preserved, it is a nice little monument. There are also a great many mudbrick structures in the surrounding area within the fortress walls.

Time was moving on and we also had to get a move on if we were to get to Luxor today. But first we were hoping to stop for coffee. I was beginning to despair as we drove further and further out of Kharga Oasis, until we eventually pulled up at a roadside coffee shop right on the edge of the Oasis. We stayed here for around an hour and had several cups of delicious coffee while Abdul and Basim drank tea and played dominoes with some of the locals. When we were asked if we needed a toilet before the next long leg of the drive, Sam and I accepted, thinking they must have one around the back of the café. We followed a man down a village street wondering where he was taking us and eventually were shown into the courtyard of a house where the owner had recently installed a new European-style toilet. A galabeya-clad lady proudly showed us the bright pink facilities and left us to it. The necessities of life have always been a problem while travelling around out-of-the-way places in Egypt. It’s a little embarrassing the way tourists are specially treated but Egyptian hospitality will prevail. Personally I’d rather go behind a rock in the desert, so as not to cause any trouble to people, but they are all so kind and eager to please. It’s also a source of baksheesh of course.

When we arrived at the little village of Bagdad and the last police checkpoint of the New Valley, Basim finally left us to travel back to Kharga City with the police truck. A fair bit of baksheesh had been handed over for his ‘services’, which has become an expensive part of tourist police protection on this trip – whether we wanted it or not, we were not given the choice. Waving the police goodbye we turned onto the Luxor road for the long four hour drive over the plateau. We passed the railway line that goes from Kharga all the way to Toshka, far out in the southern Sahara, now all sanded up and I wondered who cleans up the tracks when a train is coming.

Today there were many road works and long stretches of resurfacing work that was difficult to drive over and by the time we reached Luxor the sun had set and darkness had arrived.

Abdul drove over the bridge and dropped us at our apartment in Ramla. Fiona, Malcolm and I decided to go down the road to the Mersala hotel for dinner and who should we meet there but my old travelling companion Robin, now a Luxor resident. It was lovely to see her and we stayed and chatted for a while before walking home and collapsing into bed.

Around 11.00am, showered and somewhat refreshed but with amazing images of the White Desert still in our heads, Fiona, Malcolm and I joined Sam and Abdul at the minibus, all loaded up ready for the long drive from Qasr el-Farafra all the way back to Kharga. Our policeman Basim had mysteriously re-appeared to join us too. Some protection that was!

The journey in reverse was no more interesting than on the way. I was listening for several hours to a Paul Sussman narrated e-book on my Kindle, ‘The Last Secrets of the Temple’. This allowed me to watch the road for any possible excitement on route and not to miss anything. We saw several mirages towards the distant hills, giving the impression of vast lakes in the desert, but quite illusive to photograph. Half way to Dakhla we saw a guy on a bicycle pushing his way up a hill, laden with side panniers and looking very hot. Wow, that’s some ride!

After 300km we reached Dakhla and looked for somewhere in Mut to stop for a coffee break. Nowhere seemed quite right to Abdul. The reason for this was because we also needed to find a toilet, more of a difficult proposition in Egypt where coffee shops are populated only by men. Eventually we pulled up on a street and Basim got out and disappeared down the road, coming back and saying he had found us a toilet. Fiona Malcolm and I followed him to a small Egyptian hotel where the manager showed us upstairs to his ‘best suite’ which had a huge bathroom we could have held a party in. Though I hate putting people to so much trouble, Basim had his uses after all!

After a quick coffee on one of Mut’s main streets we were back on the road and arrived at the Pioneer Hotel in Kharga City just in time for dinner. Abdul was relieved that he didn’t have to drive too far on the desert road in the dark as there are many potholes and hidden obstacles. We were all tired and travel-weary and the five-course meal we were presented with in the dining room was mostly untouched. An early night for all.

Goodbye to Mut and on with the next and most exciting leg of our journey. When we left Dakhla at 9.30 in the morning the weather was dull, with dark mountainous clouds scudding over the horizon to either side of the road. The four-hour drive from Dakhla to Farafra took us up over the escarpment and onto a flat and fairly featureless plain. Bordered by the surrounding mountains, we saw many fields of crops irrigated by huge water sprayers – high-tech agriculture for Egypt. We stopped for a much needed cup of coffee at a tiny place called Minqar, about 200km into our journey. By then the sun was hot and we sat outside in the shade while several tiny scrawny tabby cats scampered about and one very well-fed ‘English-looking’ black cat sat presiding over them all. Many locals stop here and several 4WD vehicles were parked on the side of the road while their passengers and drivers sat drinking tea and playing dominoes. On my map I saw that there is a bir, or well, some distance from the road, which must be why there is a building here in the middle of nowhere.

Another 100km on the road and we arrived in Qasr el-Farafra pulling up outside the Hotel Badawiya. We had expected that our police escort Basim would have only come with us as far as Dakhla, but he was now in Farafra with us, having squashed into the minibus with all our luggage and slept most of the way. As I glanced over to him I noticed his gun laid on the seat beside him, his finger was loosely curled around the trigger and I hoped we wouldn’t hit any big bumps in the road. I also wondered what Basim would do tonight as Sam was staying at the hotel in a beautiful suite (she said she’d spent too many nights in the desert already and refused to do it one more time), while Fiona, Malcolm and I were camping in the White Desert. It would be interesting to see how he could be in two places at once. As it turned out, he stayed in the town – a night in the desert was obviously beyond the call of duty.

We had pre-arranged with the hotel for a guide and a Toyota Landcruiser to take us on our expedition and before long our transport was ready, loaded up with canvas, blankets and drums of water on the roof and sleeping bags and food inside. The three of us were allowed only a small bag each. Our guide/driver was called Mustapha and after saying hello he set off straight across a sandy track and back out onto the road. I was last here in 2003 and since then the White Desert has become a National Protectorate with very strict guidelines for driving and camping and is now known as White Desert Park. Certain routes are marked out because tourism was destroying so much of the environment here. I have to say I did feel guilty for contributing to this, but wanted to see it one more time and for Fiona and Malcolm it was the whole purpose of this trip to Egypt. When we turned off the road there were several vehicles already stopped in various places and my first thought was that we were not to be allowed very far off the road. However, Mustafa was just showing us the main places of interest that all tourists are taken to in the Old Desert, such as the Mushroom Field, The White House, the Cave and other famous spots I had seen in other people’s pictures.

Soon we had left the main track and were bumping our way over the sand past weird alien shapes and brilliant white boulders seeming to grow out of the surface of the desert. The rocks are sculpted by harsh winds and rough sand so they are constantly changing shape. The formations are given descriptive names such as ‘mushrooms’ or ‘ice-cream cones’ and some look like chickens, camels, hawks and pigs. In some areas it felt like we were travelling through a strange polar sea because the white chalk surface of the desert is rippled like ice-capped waves.

Each of the guides has his own favourite spots for camping and Mustapha took us to a remote location far away from other people, into the New Desert where he had a hidden stash of kindling and twigs for a campfire. He stopped the Toyota close against a rock and we all piled out. The sun would soon be setting.

While Mustapha put up a windbreak to form a little camping area and laid out rugs and sleeping bags, the three of us began to explore. Here in the New Desert the landscape becomes even whiter and the boulders crowd together and are higher and larger than in the Old Desert. As the sun went down the landscape began to turn amazing shades of vivid pink and burnt orange. On the horizon we could see a row of giant rock figures, cloaked in black shadows with the fiery sun outlining their shapes. Fiona, who has travelled the world extensively in adventure mode, was speechless.

As the darkness gathered around our little camp the smell of cooking drew us back. Mustapha had got the fire going and a large pot of chicken and vegetables was simmering nicely, along with another pot of rice. A little low table had appeared and bread, mugs for coffee and fruit and biscuits were laid out ready for dinner. We sat on our sleeping bags and enjoyed a real feast. Our only light was the camp fire and a candle in a sawn off plastic water bottle, which slowly melted as the candle burned down, keeping us amused.

Mustapha had asked if we would like to sleep in tents, but we all preferred to be out in the open, however cold it got. After a delicious dinner we went off for another walk. The desert now pitch black, lit only by the stars and the rising full moon, we were careful to note the direction in which our camp lay. It would be very easy to get lost here and be doomed to wander the desert all night. As the moon rose the surface of the land and the surrounding boulders took on a pale eerie light and the rocks looked like ghosts glowing from within. Finally, around 9.00pm we crawled into our sleeping bags that were laid out in a row. We must have looked like mummies lying side by side. A desert fox visited us for a while, investigating scraps of left-over rice and a few chicken bones that Mustapha had thrown aside. It took me a long time to get to sleep, the moon was now so bright that it seemed like a flashlight shining in my face, but even so the stars were more brilliant and numerous than I’ve ever seen. The desert is immensely silent at night with few birds or animals to disturb the peace. But in the far distance a long way from us, another group of campers were playing music and drumming late into the night and it sounded as if they were just on the other side of our rock, so clear was the air.

I woke with the morning light and Fiona urgently whispering “Quick, the sun’s coming up!” and crawling out from my sleeping bag, hurredly piled on several extra layers of clothes. Dawn is the coldest time in the desert – it’s hard to believe just how cold it can get and my fingers were numb as I fumbled with my cameras in a race to capture the sunrise. Malcolm had woken up too and we all went off for a walk, leaving Mustapha still sound asleep. Then the sun rose rapidly and washed the desert clean for a new day to begin. As the sand and the rocks turned a beautiful delicate pink we investigated animal and bird tracks – it seemed like there was a lot of activity around us during the night after all.

Eventually Mustapha woke up and began to get the fire going to make coffee and we were grateful to huddle round it now to warm ourselves. Breakfast consisted of flat Egyptian bread and jam, fruit and wafer biscuits and lots of hot coffee. All too soon it was time to break camp and we helped Mustapha to re-load the Toyota. He told us that in his day job he teaches philosophy in Farafra and had to get to work on time.

We were all subdued on the drive back through the desert to Qasr el-Farafra, awed by the night’s experience and not yet ready to leave this wonderful place. Back at the hotel we took turns to borrow Sam’s bathroom for long hot showers which at least made us feel human again, before the long drive back towards Kharga.

The modern town of Mut is the main centre of population in Dakhla and was built up around an earlier Medieval town, also called Mut. Then there is Mut el-Kharab (Mut the Ruined) earlier still. Leaving our hotel this morning – the Mut 3 – we went off to explore, yes, Mut!

Named after the Goddess Mut, Mut el-Kharab was the original settlement in the centre of Dakhla Oasis, said to date back to Dynasty XVIII, though its high mudbrick enclosing walls and the remains visible today are Roman. We pulled up by an entrance and began to climb a sandy slope towards the high point of the site. There seemed to be nobody about as we stopped to examine an interesting circular mudbrick structure with a deep cavity below, but within a minute we were spotted and shouted at by a guard. Apparently the site is closed and a team from the Dakhla Oasis Project were working. We got no further and were not even allowed to take a photograph of the site. I had wanted to see the remains of a temple of Seth which has been found here, but walking around the outside of the site there was a high wall or bushes with little opportunity to even take a peak. You win some, you lose some.

The Medieval town of Mut was accessible however and Fiona, Malcolm and I walked a little way into the warren of narrow crumbling shaded streets with Basim, our minder. Few people actually live there today and the old town has a very neglected feel, with buildings in various states of decay, but I could imagine how beautiful it must have been in its prime.

Mut the modern town is quite charming with wide streets and well-kept buildings and has a feeling of quiet rural prosperity. It’s quite a contrast to Kharga City which, though busy and bustling, looks quite run-down in some parts. I think the goddess herself would be pleased with her town today. By mid-morning we were near the medieval town outside a coffee-shop for the first strong Egyptian coffee of the day, surrounded by cats and enjoying the sunshine – something we hadn’t seen much of until today.

We took the loop road to Qasr Dakhla, our next stop on today’s itinerary and for me one of the high-points of the Oasis. We passed by the ancient sites of Galamun and Amheida, both of which are under excavation, past fields, cemeteries and Sheikh’s tombs, then around to the north-western edge of the depression. Nestled under the ever-present apricot-pink escarpment, el-Qasr is said to be the longest continuously inhabited town in the oasis.

No tickets were necessary for the guided tour of the medieval fortified town of Qasr Dakhla. We began at the mosque of Sheikh Nasr el-Din, which is a 19th century restoration of an older building that was destroyed, leaving only the original and very distinctive Ayyubid minaret. Leaving the mosque we wound our way through the narrow streets and alleyways, dark and mysterious, where the tall narrow three-storied mudbrick houses almost touched above our heads. Some of the wooden doors were below the current ground level and elaborate wooden windows high on the upper stories of houses were almost falling out in places. Most of the buildings were numbered and had the owner’s name painted or carved on a sign. Intricately carved lintels illustrated quotations from the Quran and we even saw a few pharaonic blocks that had been built into walls. The old town, though fairly neglected, is still populated by around 700 people but we only caught a fleeting glance of any inhabitants – here and there, a colourfully-dressed lady throwing out a pan of water to settle the dust or a couple of girls balancing baskets on their heads disappear around a corner.

The guide showed us the olive press, made from the wood of an old olive tree and a mill for grinding grain that would once have been turned by an ox, then a blacksmith’s shop complete with forge and bellows from which strange giant iron nails were produced for sale – all preserved for tourists of course. We saw the madrasa, a school where boys went to learn Quranic scriptures and which was the largest building in the town. The whole place is seeped in history and the atmosphere is one of a bygone time. Most of all it is very photogenic and I must have taken hundreds of pictures on our tour. We ended up by the Ethnographic Museum where traditional crafts and costumes are displayed and sold and photographs on the wall tell of the history of el-Qasr. Ladies outside sat on the ground surrounded by their colourful woven palm-leaf baskets for sale. But it was time to move on. Sam and Abdul had stayed in a coffee shop outside the town and we went to meet up with them and have another coffee. From the roof there was a fabulous view of el-Qasr.

Further to the north-west Dakhla’s only mountain, Mount Edmonstone, named after the first western traveller to Dakhla (by whom, I wondered), rose high above the desert, marked by its distinctive flat top. We drove towards the mountain and turned off down a track past remains of several Roman farmsteads to the Temple of Deir el-Hagar, literally ‘the Stone Monastery’. It was Sir Archibald Edmondstone who first began to clear the sand-filled interior of the temple in 1819. When he and other early explorers first encountered this Roman temple it must have been a romantic sight, in reasonable condition but with an air of decay. Today it has been thoroughly restored by the Dakhla Oasis Project and the story and photographs illustrating the temple’s restoration can be seen in a small visitor centre at the site. There are many interesting elements at Deir el-Hagar including a single intact papyrus column at the entrance to the sanctuary which bears the names in carved graffiti of nineteenth century explorers of the Rohlfs expedition. A huge ceiling block with an astronomical motif has been pieced together and displayed upright for easier viewing on the south side of the temple – a unique scene for a sanctuary ceiling apparently. The original temple was built by the Emperor Nero, added to by Vespasian, Titus and finally Domitian in the first century AD.

This was an area of agricultural importance and the temple would have served the Roman soldiers and the farmers who lived in the area. A stone gate was the main entrance through a large mudbrick enclosure wall and a processional way was defined by 20 mudbrick columns leading to the temple. Inside there are six chambers, including a staircase to the roof. It gives the impression of a miniature version of the Ptloemaic temples seen in the Nile Valley and is similar in style to other Roman temples we had seen in Kharga. This was the only place in Dakhla we saw other tourists as a coach of around a dozen people was just leaving as we arrived.

El-Muzzawaka means ‘the Painted Rock’ and here, not far from Deir el-Hagar, are hundreds of robbed tombs that honeycomb the flat-topped gebel. The most famous are the colourful painted tombs of Padiosiris and Petubastis which combine typical Egyptian funerary art with un-Egyptian classical figures. These tombs were closed last time I was here in 2003 and though we were told the restoration has been completed, we were still not allowed inside. Instead, after we had bought tickets, the gafir took us on a walk-about of the hill urgently insisting we look at the mummies. I remembered from my last visit, the various undecorated tombs with quite a number of mummified corpses lying about haphazardly so I was just as insistent about not seeing them. I did have a look at some kind of extensive water feature and there was a great view of yardangs scattered about on the slope below. A big new visitor centre has been built here since my last visit but this too was not yet open.

When we got back to the hotel late in the afternoon we found the hot spring was now running. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring my swimsuit, but Malcolm and Fiona were soon having a dip in the warm muddy water while I sat on the edge and dangled my legs in, watching them slowly turn brown from the minerals. It’s been a long but very enjoyable day.

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